


His one unfought battle

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Multi, good timeline, self-restraint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cabanela was sure he'd win if he ever gave it a shot. Story of his life: attempt, succeed. He just couldn't afford to see anyone else but himself lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His one unfought battle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shledzguohn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shledzguohn/gifts).



 

 

It was easier when Cabanela believed that his one great love - the whole big deal, like in the movies - would be someone to match him and beat him on his turf. A smooth dancer, a sharp talker, the second joker in the deck. A sleek figure to lead in a heated tango and hold in awe, stars in their eyes, as the world crashed around them, too slow to match their pace.

A colleague, maybe, why not, he'd met people from all walks of life since kindergarten, fascinating creatures, people, and the detective division was nothing but the latest stage of the grand show of his success.

Just not this colleague. Not the one with the deep hoarse laugh and firm hands and that unexpected taste for the absurd (a joker alright, from his own deck) and the beautiful wife and the newborn girl.

 

Cabanela is a good liar and good enough a detective to always catch himself red-handed – it's the reason he eventually stops lying to himself altogether, it's just not worth the effort.

_I've known him two months and I would give my life for him._

_Sure you would_ (oh, he sure would. He's serious). _And?_

 _He's married._ That's it, that's the whole answer. A solid wall.

He lines up these thoughts he's having that still slip through the wall, this longing for stupidly simple contact, a handshake, a pat on the shoulder, for chances to praise him, that one tentative dream he hasn't really forgotten as much as he would have wanted to. They form a confession. Cabanela punches a wall in his bare clean flat and goes to sleep focusing on this new, more manageable ache.

 

.

 

It was easier when 'the wife' was someone he could envy. A vague image. The lucky one who snatched him first. He'd seen her in pictures, of course Jowd kept pictures, like the good loving father he was. So he was into elegance? Culture? Legs? ...women? So okay, maybe that was a point, but for the rest, all he would have needed was a chance. Had he met him first, he could have– not taken him out dancing, no passionate sweeps with that one, but he could have played it fair, showing all his best cards like a peacock's tail. She just got lucky.

Except it turned out that this beauty queen of a wife was as much a part of him as the chicken jokes and that godsdamn curtain he put between himself and everyone else. Alma. She was never 'the wife' to him, she was Alma and she snuggled her way into his every thought, as a second opinion he never forgot to voice. Jowd was Jowd because his Alma was right beside him.

 

When he manages to meet this paragon of virtue, they end up eating ice cream and fries (don't ask) on a bench, the three of them with a sleepy tiny thing curled up on her mother's lap. And she is elegant. It's in her clothes – her bow matching the shoes as well as the cuffs of her light spring coat is a bold choice and it adds to her figure – just as in her movements, Cabanela thinks as she avoids a strawberry-flavoured disaster. She is well-versed in all the most pointless fields of human knowledge, and it's got to be an upper-class education filling her head with time wasters and a flawless, perennially outdated take on fashion. But trivia turns out to be funnier than he'd give it credit for, the way she dishes it out. She's a good sport. And granted, those legs could kill.

But the thing? The thing that kills him? She's the tune to his beat.

She was lucky to meet Jowd when she did. So was he.

By their third shared lunch, he's come to envy that fellow whose worst problem is that _Oh, I can't help I'm in love / With the girl of my best friend_. Tough luck, baby. Double that and then we'll talk.

 

.

 

So much easier when passively pining was a phenomenon he could sneer at from afar. What's the matter, he'd groan. Fight. Go for it. Now he has to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, yielding is all you can do and keeping yourself together is where the fight is at.

It's a fight he's winning against himself, at least. That's got to amount for something.

 

.

 

It was easier when he was about to give up. Because they deserved roses, cinema tickets, the best take-away in town. Because Alma needed some help to jazz up those smiling, understated jokes of hers, not to lose her composure, while Jowd needed a partner who could watch his back on the job, not by staring at the curve of his spine under his shirt and at how the fabric wrinkled near the belt.

Best pals in his life. He had to be theirs.

 

The main perk of being Cabanela, Cabanela concludes, is that he's always right. So yes: he would really give his life for them. And yes they are definitely married. And that's the clincher. Nothin' more to it, it's all just a matter of self-control now. He can shoo his unwanted thoughts back in line until he's clean.

So as he sits between his best friends, hip against hip, knee against knee, Jowd's arm draped around his shoulders and hand wrapped around his scarf while Alma's fingers ease off the tension of the muscles in his back, Cabanela is one thing and one thing alone: the luckiest bloke in the world.

He bites his lip.

 

.

 

It was easier to look at himself in the mirror before that day in the interrogation room. Never again. He swears to be spotless. With some luck, nobody ended up dead. Never again.

 

.

 

It was easier before Jowd started giving him Looks. Oh, he could write a treatise on Looks and this is a whole new set.

There is the Mother Hen Look which makes him feel safe and guarded. Him. Cabanela isn't supposed to be _safe and guarded_ , he'd confront him with a clear “I can hold my ooown, don't you think? Watch yourself if you've got attention to spare”, except what he does is curl up to sit beside him and whistle a tune.

There's the Too Old Look which just begs to be slapped away. They're young, they're brilliant. They have only made one mistake in their combined lives and it isn't Jowd's, so what in perdition is that sadness all about.

And there's the I'm Sorry, What Did I Do To You Look, to which he'd answer, _Wish I knew but make it stop, baby. Make it stop._

Jowd with his guard down used to be a rare sight and one that never fails to thrash his stomach with the impact of a speeding bullet. When he catches him frowning, with crooked shoulders and clenches fists, Cabanela stares back. He went for a hug once, but it didn't help all the same and he didn't know when to pull back (nor how to, nor how adamantly still his hands must have felt).

 

.

 

It was easier before Alma called and asked to see him.

It's raining outside the cafeteria and she arrives five minutes early, that is, six or seven after he took off his coat, looking every inch the fragile, scared bird one could mistake her for as a first impression.

“Can't you help him?”

“Not if you can't.”

“Stay close, Cabanela.”

“You do not need to ask.”

They feel like drowning.

 

.

 

Whole lot of ugly complications in his life. Not what he signed up for, maaan, not at all.

 

.

 

But it's easy when Jowd takes his hand one evening, after exchanging A Look with Alma, and just says "Stop us". And kisses him. Kisses _his hand_. Still. There's beard tickling all the way to the tip of his fingers, a soft line where lips are touching his knuckles, Jowd's thumb pressing on half his palm. His skin is burning.

He is Detective Cabanela and he knows how to play his own leading role: he's allowed to feign surprise, to make a show of it, to jump back and crack a joke – taking care not to break hand contact for as long as that blessing lasts. Jowd has his serious face on, which could mean that this is a test. Test of what, Cabanela wouldn't know: his partner is an unreadable mask, he could break down laughing in a moment or declare he's dying. Gut feeling says it's serious, not some misfired joke (gut feeling also says it's good but that's also called wishful thinking). Pride says not to give up and ask _What_ , he'll figure it out. But two can play that game and nothing he doesn't reveal or do can be used against him, so he turns the tables around. It's not as if he wasn't entitled to have his hand solemnly kissed, he concedes it with royal grace and he'll still be able to say that he was just playing along.

Jowd draws in his arm like a rope, checking for resistance, finding none, and plants another tentative kiss on his wrist. Cabanela's fixed smile goes up a fraction. Slender fingers fidget with his earlobe, another hand makes its way up to his chest and he can feel Alma's breath on the base of his neck. This is serious, this is real, this is very, very good. This is hitting him with all the thoughts he's discarded and those he never dared to entertain.

It's all about self-control, Cabanela has been telling himself for months, and his self-control has just raised its thumbs, stamped an official approval and left for the day

“Saaay I don't stop you.”

“Then we keep at it. This isn't half bad after all.”

“Why, thank you, baby. Now work on the other half, will you.”

And it's not easy to wrap his mind around the logistics of taking Alma under his arm, grabbing her shoulder and never letting her go, and getting to Jowd's inviting spot of exposed neck while keeping his balance, it's not easy to stop and think about anything at all, but hey, he's good at improvising.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid that Jowd's (and consequently Alma's) pov is missing, because of deadlines as well as third person limited restraints. I think it's the one that needs more explanations and could therefore be more interesting, but I didn't know how to make it fit here, so apologies if it feels like a deus ex machina (on the other hand, cutting off the ending and leaving it unrequited would've been too sad). I swear there is a reasoning behind it, but it will have to fit into some other fic... for now, happy Yuletide, my dear giftee! I hope you're having a great day!


End file.
